Free breakfast club for all primary school kids

[ladykale]

So the Labour government is planning to offer free breakfast clubs for all children at all state schools regardless of area.

Given that these are often run independently from schools themselves, if you have a state school in very close proximity to a private school, should private school parents be allowed to use this service, and if not, why not?

It usually makes securing staff easier as they then do TA hours which are not on there own enough for most job seekers.

@crumblingschools i wondered this. These breakfast clubs might be inundated with LOADS of kids - at the moment it’s only about 10% of the younger kids who go (y5 and y6 tend to walk to school so don’t need the club). But potentially for a free breakfast there could be 360 kids at oh school wanting care at 7.30 … where will school put them all? Who will look after them?

also at our school it’s the same company who does After School club that does the breakfast club, it operates in an adjacent church which has a back gate through to the school. I don’t know how it would work as I definitely cannot see school wanting the kids onsite at 7.30am!

It'll be teachers, I'm sure they won't mind popping in for an extra hour or so every day! I would say they'll fund additional staff, but certainly here it's impossible to recruit TAs and childcare settings have loads of vacancies too.

Maybe their parents should pay for them to eat- just an idea … I pay for my children to eat, I chose to have them and I will pay for them so no one else has to

If the child is on a bursary then that bursary should include breakfast club, if needed. This seems fairly obvious?

DS asked me the other day if he could go to breakfast club, I said no (our hours and office locations along with school drop off bring at 8:30 means we have no need for it) , when I asked why he said because they all get to have chocolate spread for breakfast and he has fruit and porridge. So if this is meant to be a healthy start for children who need it that needs looking at. Ditto school lunches, infants at DS' school are not allowed to bring packed lunches because they all get a free hot lunch, I've seen them and there would definitely be more nutritional value in a lunch I'd pack for him. There does need to be intervention for children who need it but across the board provision isn't it.

As for your situation OP , no I wouldn't expect the bursary student to go over the road for breakfast, I would expect them to have breakfast at home or if it's really necessary for them to be at school for breakfast, for the private school to suck up the cost of a bowl of rice Krispies for their own pupil.

I live in Wales. Dc has had a free breakfast club for many years already. You can contribute a £1 a day if you so wish. The breakfast club opens at 08.15. All primary schools in Wales are giving free school lunches to primary children as well. I'm not sure how this had been implemented in all primary schools in Wales yet, but in dc school, all children up to year 6 can now have a free school lunch. Next door to dc school, there is a private school. No, I don't think the private school or any school should be allowed to go into my dcs school. I can't see how practical it would be. I think it would be hard to staff and manage children. They would never know safe staff to children ratios or be able to cater according, which could leave food waste or not enough. I wouldn't drop my dc off to a random school either. I think every individual school should be able to offer their pupils the service.

@Teddybarr that's my thinking, hence the question. Staffing round here is a nightmare. Hopefully, not another ill thought out school policy

OP you are being deliberately faux naive here. Of course children can't pop in and out if various schools to access specific elements.

What are you really trying to get at?

Just replace 'breakfast' with 'education' in the argument in your head and that should solve the mystery.

Tax doesn't work like that.

You pay into the national pot and you, yourself, may not benefit from it at the time you are paying in. However you would have benefited from others taxes as a child and also in future if you get very ill/disabled plus as a pensioner.

OP there’s been some discussions in the independent education sector of having a nursery like fee structure with the free hours and added extras . The private school becomes under the state school academy structure and each pupil receives their state school allowance, this would include free breakfast club etc and then parents top up like they do in nurseries when getting the funded free hours. So in that case if this is how private schools go forward (this has been in discussion since the VAT increase) then your friend who is on a bursary would get their breakfast anyway paid for by the state. There’s a review meeting on this going through at the moment.

Free breakfast clubs have been available in Wales for a few years. When they first opened they led to children arriving in school on time and ready to learn after eating breakfast. In our area you can pay for 'care" from 8am onwards or children arrive for a free breakfast from 8.20 onwards.

DS went to a small be very over subscribed private prep. Not only did they offer breakfast club from 7.30am and various activities from 8am onwards but parents could pre-book to join them OR to collect a breakfast roll and a tea / coffee when they dropped children off. It was surprisingly popular... all added to the bill of course. How I miss that school

I don't think that private school kids should be allowed to use state school breakfast clubs. If you've opted out of state you've opted out of all of it

I don't disagree with you, but it's just obvious what the OP was alluding to so not sure why people were confused- I didn't say I agreed.

Of course they can. It isn't a forced thing.

No. Why on earth should they be able to. State education isn't opt in opt out as you fancy. You want to access state school provisions, you can join the state education system.

Really interesting - any links with further info about this?

Obviously not because it's in the middle of the day!

Wondered for before and after school provision as I thought it was typically provided by companies independent from the schools (the case for after school at many anyway)

Wraparound care was near awful in state schools
One of many reasons we made the difficult decision to go private -

@Ohthatsjustalotofeffort that's not possible under existing Free School legislation. Ability to pay cannot be a criteria for selection,and in any case you can only establish a free school where the LA can show demand for places, and the LA commissions them. They would have to, for example, admit looked after children and children with an EHCP as a priority.

Given there are a) falling rolls in most schools and b) most private schools serve a much wider geographic area than their immediate neighbourhood, they won't meet the criteria.

Selection by ability to pay in the state sector is illegal in the UK. There's no way the new government would change the legislation to make it so.

Private schools could of course bid to set up a FS as part of a MAT; they couldn't charge for any element of that education though within school hours/curriculum. Given the VAT increase only became a fact on Friday I don't think this is an actual thing.

Lots of schools run it in house. All of the schools around us have wraparound and most of them run it in house.

I don't know which is more common.

But even when it's contracted out, it's not an open to all service - the school remains heavily involved. And any funding is attached to pupils at that school.

Perhaps the private school could consider some kind of partnership if they can't run their own wraparound - like sharing their facilities in return...

We run a breakfast club but can only have a certain number if pupils each morning. It's a paid for service bar the odd one who is PP.
But without more staff and more money we can't take on more.

Where will be run this breakfast club for the whole school? Where will the children go? The hall isn't big enough to hold all of the children for a breakfast club.

Not all of our TAs and/or teachers won't the extra half hour or so of work either. So who will staff it?

And they'll need paying to run it and provide food. Where will the money come from?

One of the reasons free breakfast for all is offered is because administering it can be cheaper than sorting who qualifies for free and who needs to pay. It can also be done without providing before school childcare. My DD’s school at one point had children eating breakfast in the classroom during bell work.

I find this an odd question, it is clearly for the kids attending that school you will need to register, you can’t possibly think anyone can just front up with their kids and drop them off, be they 6 months old or 12 years old going to a school a mile away or 10 miles away, cmon.